Two of the Most Common Questions About How to Sell on Amazon – Time & Money

If you’re looking at how to sell on Amazon and and begin selling products on Amazon, you probably have plenty of questions. We hear from many people here at AMZ Insiders who are just starting out in e-commerce, and two of the most common questions we get are about time and money:

How much money does it take to get underway?

How long will it take to be successful?

Whether you are in the category of “How to Sell on Amazon for beginners” or a veteran, these are really important questions to ask. If you’re anything like me, you may have explored other business opportunities, like real estate or franchises. You know that any good business opportunity requires some level of investment, whether it’s time or finances–or a combination.

How much money will I have to invest?

For someone that’s new to the business, of course the question is: How much money does it take to get started with Amazon? The good news is that Amazon is pretty reasonable in terms of what it costs to get underway. It does take some money, but it doesn’t take a lot compared to some other business opportunities.

For example, in real estate you may have to invest $30K – $40K for a down payment. To start a franchise, you may need $50K – $100K for a franchise fee. On top of those costs, you would likely need support and training to do it well. So while these business opportunities are often good investments, it can be fairly expensive to get started.

So what’s the answer? To start a profitable business on Amazon, I’d say you need about $5,000 to invest in the beginning.

How much time will I have to invest?

The second question is about time. Selling on Amazon is a real business that can start out of your garage and grow into something significant, but just like anything else, it requires time and dedication. It’s not “get rich quick.”

You need to be able to put in an hour or two each day to be able to make good progress, and I’d say it takes at least 90 days to be up and running with your first level of success on Amazon.

Besides investing time and money directly into the business, it’s important to invest into educating yourself as well. I don’t recommend just jumping right into it and trying to figure everything out yourself. While you’re bound to make mistakes either way (and that’s part of the startup process), it’s important to find someone that you can learn from and can help mentor you.

The power of Amazon is that you can scale your business to be very large, or you can keep it as a small lifestyle business. When we first started with AMZ Insiders, we were working out of a garage, and now we’ve grown substantially to have a large headquarters and warehouse full of merchandise. Once you know what you’re doing, it’s not that hard to scale up to sell more, but there are a lot of things you want to make sure you do right to ensure you have profitable growth.

For a behind-the-scenes look at what our headquarters look like these days, check out this quick video!

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